Self help books to change your life?

[Stillundertheduvet]

Posting here for traffic - I need to change my life. Work, fitness, social life, hobbies. I’m deeply deeply miserable every day. (To be honest it’s mainly the job)

I’m 46 with school age kids and elderly parents so my choices are limited but somethings got to give.

so I’m browsing self help books. So far looking at Suzy Welch “Becoming You” and “the happiness trap” by russ Harris.

has anyone read them? Would you recommend? Or do you have any other recommendations?

Atomic Habits is really excellent. It helped me a huge amount.

I like both The happiness trap and Atomic habits.

I also just read Don't believe everything you think.

I liked The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin.

It's not really a self help book as much as it is an account of her trying 12 different ways to improve her own happiness for a month at a time and reflecting on it but I took a lot from it and really enjoyed it as a book.

I think the problem with a lot of self help books is that they are a reasonable concept but the author tries to stretch it ridiculously out to fix every single problem in the world and nothing really works like that.

I like books where the author recounts their own journey or experience somehow in some detail, that is the most useful thing IME.

The Let Them theory by Mel Robbins. Not even finished it yet and already changed my life. Even got DH saying ‘let them’ if I forget
myself and start to get annoyed.

I have it on audible and listen to a chapter at a time and am incorporating it into my life slowly

Listen to rangan chatterjees podcast he interviews so many different inspirational people and has written books too.. I was listening to his most recent epsiode with someone called Kirsty Gallagher and it was really interesting and well worth a listen for self help

It's an old one and may be dated (not read it in decades) but I learned so much from Feel the Fear by Susan Jeffers. I still return to some of the key exercises in it and I've taught them to DC and to friends and students who all appreciate them. It transformed my approach to life in my twenties in terms of making key life decisions and also teaching me how to build and live a really full life. I'm coming back to it now DC are grown, to rebuild a full life now most of it isn't taken up with parenting. Her advice is just timeless and brilliant.

I also found The Road Less Travelled useful. Lots about it that I dislike, but Scott Peck was the first person to point out to me that real love begins after the 'in love' phase. I had been drifting from relationship to relationship as soon as the 'in love' feeling ended, with a real fear and distaste for any sort of cosiness or domesticity. I learned to overcome that and although the first LTR I stuck with was disastrous, the next one was DH.

Also, if you smoke, Alan Carr's book on how to give up smoking works like magic. I went from 30 a day to none at all before I was half way through the book, even though he suggests you keep smoking until you finish reading. Cigarettes just revolted me by the time I was a few chapters in, despite having smoked pretty heavily for a decade.

Great suggestions, thank you. I will research them all.

Me too! That’s the reason I have faith in self help books

Following! Interesting thread, thank you.

I am miserable too - mainly lonely and living in complete disarray.

Sorry to hear that @Anxious2024 I hope things improve for both of us

Louise Hay is a classic

Thank you, I do too 💚

What’s your dream by Simon Squibb is a great read

Another vote for this one. He has introduced me to so many brilliant things, including let them and atomic habits, which I see are also mentioned here by others. Four thousand weeks by Oliver burkeman is another I first heard of on the podcast, as well as the body keeps the score and his excellent episode with Edith eger, who is truly amazing. Rangan is a treasure trove!

Oh I loved one called 59 seconds think a little change a lot. It’s literally the only one I’ve ever read and I keep meaning to replace it. So many helpful things but the tip I remember most was how something as simple as holding a pen in your mouth can change your mood, has experiments etc

Atomic Habits is a great book. But... if you have ADHD it doesn't work. It makes so much sense but it isn't really suitable for ND people. Just pointing this out, as I think James Clear is a brilliant self-help guru among a world of charlatans, but even he isn't right for everyone.

She has some alluring ideas, but she is problematic. She thinks people bring cancer on themselves by not having enough positive thoughts. From the same era, Susan Jeffers is completely sane, sound and factual.

I really recommend Feel the Fear for turning life around.

Also, there's a thread on here of people who follow the stoics - Marcus Aurelius etc - self-help gurus from Ancient Greece. I learned so much about friendship from Aristotle's The Nichomachean ethics. It totally transformed what i thought friendship was and made me much less lonely and happier. Not as accessible as modern writers but the ideas are profound.

Sounds left-field, but try Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Not a traditional self help book, but fantastic for stimulating your brain in ways you wouldn't necessarily expect.

I can’t recommend any books , but the quote

“you are living someone else’s dream’

makes me more grateful and happier with my lot.

I like Ajahh Brahm's talks on YouTube. He does one every Friday along with a short meditation.

I've read a lot of self help books and usually most of the useful information is in the first chapter - the rest it padding. I like Genevieve Davis's manifestation and magic books, particularly Magic Words which is about using positive language to change your perpective on your life.

hmmm, I'm not sure that's exactly what she's saying, though it's a long time since I've read her books.

My understanding is that traumatic experiences we have experienced, particularly in childhood result in a lot of negative patterns about our bodies and about our lives.
This can result in us subconsciously attacking our own bodies resulting in many of the illnesses that people suffer from.

@RedBeech, can you possibly link to the Stoics thread? I've found some of their teachings really useful.

Interesting..! I’m autistic - I wonder if I need to seek out literature for people with autism